Man Converts Van Into Micro Camper For Just £700 With FREE IKEA Wood
- Richard turned a Ford Transit van into a micro camper for just £700
- He picked up free flooring from Facebook groups and sourced a solar panel system from Marketplace
- His furniture was built using wood panels which were left outside IKEA for anyone to pick up for FREE
- The van now features insulation, sound proofing, a full electrics system and furniture
Many of us dream about travelling the country, Europe or even the world from a cosy little campervan - but it can feel impossible when we think about the costs involved. However, one man has managed to make this dream a reality on a budget by exchanging his car for a van and spending just £700 renovating it for his camper lifestyle.
Richard Birkin, a 35 year old coach driver from the north west of England, told money-saving community LatestDeals.co.uk: ‘Myself and my partner managed to turn a standard Ford Transit van into an amazing little microcamper for only £700.
‘We were realistic about our budget when considering the build, so it doesn’t have the stuff inside that you would expect to see in a big £70,000 camper van. But that doesn’t mean we kept it simple!
‘To start our conversion, we needed the right vehicle. We ended up getting a 2014 Ford Transit Connect. To save money we didn’t buy it outright, instead part exchanging our car for this vehicle. We were lucky that we part exchanged at the right time - cars had shot up in value, but vans hadn’t. This meant I got a great part exchange rate for the car.
‘Once we got home, the first thing we had to do was strip off the maintenance stickers from the back of the van. This was a challenge and a half! We ended up using a heat gun to heat up the sticker adhesive so that it would melt down, making it a lot easier to peel off. This did, however, leave a load of sticky residue behind. We tried a number of different things to get the residue off and we ended up finding out white spirit was the best solution. Nail polish remover came in a close second.
‘We had a little chip on the windscreen that we had to repair with a cheap eBay repair kit. This was followed up by some touch up paint work on the vehicle - a few little spots just needed that little bit of touching up. This is when we noticed there were a fair few little stone chips on the front of the van. With the mileage the van has on it, this was understandable, but we wanted to keep it protected moving forwards so we got a second hand bonnet guard.
‘The guard wasn’t in the best shape, so we sanded it all down and ordered some replacement screws and clips which were missing. We then gave it a nice coat of black PVC paint, a few coats of lacquer on top, then dropped it on the bonnet. We also noticed the old wiper blades were scratching the screen so we went out and replaced those as well.
‘I was lucky with storage options as a friend gave me a roof top box for just £30. It looks great on top of the van and fits really well. I’ve seen boxes like this go for hundreds of pounds so this was a fantastic saving.
‘We were now ready to focus on the interior. Looking at the space we knew it made sense to remove as much as possible, so we took out the bulkhead and sold it.
‘There was some additional work to do once the bulkhead was gone. This is because the van was a 3 seater, but the seatbelts were attached to the bulkhead, so we replaced the seats with base model seats that had the safety equipment built into them. Fortunately we managed to pick them up cheap from a scrap yard and a car recycling place, and the total cost was just £100 which we were very happy with. We made sure everything was compliant so the van would pass its MOT.
‘The next step was to think about sound proofing, and we purchased the cheapest supplies from eBay. The cheaper the price, the more we could get while sticking to our budget, so we picked up 12 square metres for just £35. The product we got was a rubber reflective mat which sticks onto the panels and takes away a lot of the panel boom. When I park somewhere I can't really hear the cars going past due to the sound deadening. We only needed to cover up about a third of the panel with each mat, and it was enough to make the panel completely sound dead.
‘We also wanted to insulate all of the panels inside the van, so we shopped around for the best price and B&Q turned out to be the best place. It was £17 per roll of insulation from there, and I used three rolls. We unravelled it and let it puff itself up. Once it was full of air we started stuffing it into every single nook and cranny we could find - big gaps on the side doors and back doors, tiny ones in the ceiling, everywhere we could find really!
‘Electricity is also important when you’re on the go in a campervan, so I installed a battery connected to a solar power system to enable internal electrics which power the lighting and charging ports. We got this setup from Facebook Marketplace, as a company was closing down and selling left-over stock. They sold me the perfect kit - it was tailored to exactly what I needed.
‘It cost £300 to get a solar panel which I fitted to the roof of the van, along with a charge control unit to go inside. The battery running all of the electrics now lives underneath the bed, and it features 6 USB ports and a little button to turn the roof lights on and off. We’ve also got the fridge constantly plugged in, there’s room for any other little appliances we need, we can plug in a fan for the summer and so on.
‘For the flooring, we laid down some plywood first and then covered it with some kitchen lino. This was a free offcut that we found on a Facebook group that gives away household supplies.
‘The best money-saving trick from this transformation was the completely free wood I picked up to build the furniture. Outside the returns area of many IKEA shops, there’s a big metal crate full of parts of wardrobes and beds. Customers who buy IKEA furniture, then discover part of it is damaged, will often return the item for a refund or exchange. It’s actually cheaper for IKEA to leave parts from the original products outside their shop for others to pick up as they need it, so we saved loads of money this way.
‘For the bed, we also saved money. The mattress was just £20, also from IKEA - it was in their ‘slightly damaged’ area. Once we got it home, we cut it to shape so it would go nicely inside the van. I then installed a folding shelf on the door so that we can work, eat or read while on the go.
‘After I had sold my old van seats and the bulkhead on eBay, I used that money to buy the lights and other accessories to make the van look more homely, such as some wooden panelling and decorations.
‘We will only be staying in the van one or two nights a month, so we didn’t need to take many serious measures regarding condensation build up.
‘Now the van is done we have taken a number of trips, including a short break in the Lake District which only cost us £30 as we had the van to stay in overnight. I’m very happy with how the project turned out and now I never have to worry about paying out for hotels!’
Tom Church, Co-Founder of LatestDeals.co.uk, said: ‘Richard’s campervan makeover will be inspirational for those who are looking for a way to travel on a budget. He’s made a small space both functional and homely - nice one!’
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